Why Differentiating Your Community Matters

Specializing in a unique product or service that solves your customer's problems, or finding your niche, is critical to earning profits in a competitive market. To stand out among competitors, businesses need to understand their differentiation and be first in customer's minds when it's time to buy. 

The success of your community also depends on differentiation. Your objectives may be different (such as growing membership instead of increasing revenues), but you are competing for an arguably more precious resource than dollars — attention.

So how do we stand apart, and drive important behaviors like repeat visits, time spent on the site, and referrals on our communities?

Let's turn to our own experiences as consumers. It's easy to come up with the reasons why we choose one company over another, such as:

• Service – driving across town to have your oil changed because you like how your garage treats you
• Experience – walking into an inviting place like the Apple Store and being greeted with a friendly smile
• Convenience – popping into the Starbucks next door to the office in the morning
• Choice – ever walked down the cereal aisle at the grocery and felt overwhelmed by all the brands?
• Exclusivity – the feeling Lexus and BMW owners enjoy knowing their cars are finer than most. Really.
• Relationship – being on a first name basis with your physician
• Location – RedBox DVD rental kiosks placed in MacDonalds restaurants. Dinner and a movie!
• Loyalty – insisting on Canon cameras, Tide detergent, or any number of beloved brands

These are all examples of firms providing value that fulfills a unique need for a specific group of people. Your probably thinking about similarities with your community, but here's the key: you can't be all things to all people.

There are only so many hours in the day, and so much leverage you can squeeze out of technology, and other people. To achieve true differentiation, you'll need to decide on one or two qualities that makes your community special, and make sure you are doing these things better than anyone else.

Let's use location as an example. Many of you run support communities for companies with established web sites, and its common to link to community resources from existing pages. What about going beyond links, and surfacing discussions and expertise directly? Use the "RedBox" effect to your advantage — draw in web site visitors and engage them via the community.

Excellent service is hard to find, and another ripe opportunity for differentiation. Look for ways to delight and surprise your members at every touch point. For example, it's easy to send new members a generic welcome email. Adding small personal touches, like your signature and contact information, tells people you care. Better still, a quick thank you phone call might even get you a "Wow!" response.

Exclusivity is a cachet that takes significant effort to build and maintain. If you want people to seek out your community and ask to participate, your community will need a carefully guarded "star" quality. One example: a "relationship and opportunity network," with access to a powerful and well-connected group of people, such as Cx0s of Fortune 500 companies. 

How does your community distinguish itself? Please share examples of differentiators you are using effectively today. 

Comments

[Paul Kasper]

Great post. You bring up a lot of important considerations.

I'd also like to emphasize the importance of content. Even if you provide great service or a good experience, it is very difficult to grow your community if you don't have unique content or content that users need. Sometimes you have to seed some valuable content to get the community growing.

And, in my experience, I've found that relationships and service are the most important differentiations. When you can provide human responses in this age of spam and robocalls, the human touch can go a long, long way.

[Rick Ramsey]

Lou, I think an identity or a sense of belonging to a group that shares your values or your interests can also play a part. Harley-Davidson does a brilliant job with its Harley Owner's Group. A Harley is far from the best motorcycle in the marketplace, but it has a tremendous mystique. That took decades and continuous care to build and maintain. Other motorcycle companies, who produce far better products than Harley Davidson, have no such mystique.

I don't think this happens by accident, though. It has to be a priority year after year, have budget, and be nurtured without interruption. And, of course, there has to be an opportunity. I can't imagine a Tide Owner's Group. :-)

Rick

[Sue]

The personal touch is very important, and your are so right that service and how we treat our members is a primary factor in a successful community, People join a community because they want to interact with others. Making that experience as personal, and as easy, as possible is very important. Great Post Lou

[Matt Zellmer]

Great inaugural post Lou.

When you say we need to differentiate our communities, are you saying they need to be differentiated from other communities or that we should be using communities to help differentiate an organization's brand? I can see both applying depending on the context. Within the context of a large corporation I think a well strategized and managed community can have a huge impact on differentiating the company from it's competitors. Rick's Harley Davidson example is a good illustration.

Your observations and examples should be good motivators for community managers to push beyond the standard "yes we have a community with N visitors" to going the extra mile to really delight and surprise the members.

[Lou Ordorica]

Matt, all things being equal, Brand A will win out over Brand B if it has a stronger following of users and advocates — people not affiliated with the company who voluntarily prop up the brand. A strong community enables companies to compete more effectively. So yes and yes -- we should strive for differentiation at multiple levels. Thanks for your perspective!

[Allison Aldridge-Saur]

Great read, Lou! A great opportunity with social media is that you can validate whether the differentiation you identified is also how your community/ customers see you. I have worked at companies that missed an opportunity to leverage an existing strength while striving for another that was not what their customers desired.

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